Trillbilly Worker's Party - Episode 418: The Eviction Kings (w/ Special Guest: Thomas Birmingham)

Episode Date: November 13, 2025

This week we talk the recently released Epstein emails and interview journalist Thomas Birmingham about his piece in The Nation "The Eviction Kings" (linked below). https://www.thenation.com/article/society/american-landmark-evictions-israel-electra/

Okay, welcome to the show this week. We've recently gotten some pushback. from, you know, actually, this isn't recent pushback. The entirety of this show, what has made people matter than anything is that we never introduce ourselves at the top of the episode. Like, people get so, they get so pissed about this.

There was this really long review of the show on the Apple podcast app where it's like, there's no context of this show. I never know what's going on. All right, no context. There's no context. I have no context. I need more context.

I need more context. I need more context. I can listen to this goddamn show. If I get some context. I need more. Oh, my God. My God, my context. You got to have more context.

I mean, I get it. It's tough not having context. That is true. That is true. Yeah. I'm, you know, I'm being bad, but I hate. when I'm out there without context sometimes. Yeah.

When I'm in that situation, though, I have the decency to just smile real big and say, well, I have to wait and see what the Brookings Institute has to say about that. Oh, yeah. When you don't have contact? To the hors d'oeuvre tray. Oh, yeah.

That's good. If you got some social strategies, you keep in your back pocket for things get a little awkward? For sure. Social strategies for awkward moments? Mm-hmm. I'm trying to think.

think. I generally, you know, whip my ass out. Oh, okay. I pull my ass out. A lot of people don't know this, but you've got a red ass like one of like, what's that Simeon that has the red ass? A baboon. Because baboons have the red ass and they like to show it to attract mates? That's how you've sired an air. You had to stick that ass out and wait for somebody to take the bait. what's the what's the

what's the monkey that fucks a lot like they're not mad chimpanzees are the ones that like get pissed off and yeah chamber rip you first off is it a um what's the one that has a lot of sex that's the one with the red ass I think

I'm gonna say I'm just gonna say well that's what I usually do in socially awkward situations like my ass is so spectacularly red that I have those drop down pajama things that you know you can pull your ass out up yeah

and I just dropped down the pajama flap on the back of my, the ass flap on the back of my pajamas and pull my extraordinarily red ass out. Yeah, you're right. It's bad. It's the bad button. And people think like, oh, you know, people didn't huddle around my red ass for warmth and guidance. Well, yeah, I mean, that's what it's for, you know? It's like a moths to a flame, you know?

Uh-huh. That is a good social strategy. It's also, I like that you've turned. it on its head. This is getting awkward, so I'm going to make it even more awkward. I'll see your awkward and raise you some more awkward. Now, watches everybody drifts to my ass for wisdom and comfort. You can do that. You can also trauma dump. You can trauma dump on a whole crowd. That'll, that's a good social strategy. That'll teach them. Yeah, I've done that. Yeah, you just, I would have done that one. Yeah, things just haven't been the same since the

flood. I just bring down the mood immediately. You could provide context. You'd be surprised every people will do that. Bring down the mood as a strategy. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's not what I like to do, generally.

But in a pinch, you might not have an option. Yeah. Well, I didn't get to introduce my, or go ahead, sorry. No, I was just saying that I'm going to an event tonight that I'm, and I'm going to see a lot of people I've not seen in some time, which is always kind of an awkward thing for me, because how do you just articulate somebody that, well, for the last 15 years, I've been mostly talking, you know, so I'm trying to figure out, you know, what are my, my parachute cords that I can just pull and a pinch if I can just get, you know, if I just don't want to talk about the finer

points of my talking line. Well, you can talk about. I can't take a compliment either, though. It's even worse when people are familiar with the show and they want to compliment me. you know, I don't like that either. You don't like that? I don't care. I mean, it's not that I don't appreciate it.

I just don't know how to respond to it. Like in an IRL setting. Uh-huh. You know, so probably what I'll do is I'll just stop somebody. I mean, there's probably no danger that happening to this crowd. But if it does, in the event that it does happen, I say, let me stop you right there. I receive all praise in writing. So if you would just write a letter or a DM or a text,

that would be a lot better for me, actually. I think, like, you receive a compliment, this is what you do. You receive a compliment, you flip it on its head. You immediately give them back a greater compliment. So if they say, Tom, I love the show, love what you've been saying lately on the show. I love the words you've been using. I'm saying, bar, hair looks great. What are you using that?

Yeah, don't even acknowledge it. They complimented you. Just go immediately to, you've got beautiful eyes. I love your eyes. They're beautiful and mesmer eyes. Oh, my God. That's right. I'm just getting real weird with it.

Or you could compliment someone else. You could say, they say, Tom, I love your show. I love what you've been saying lately. I love your words. And you say, well, you know. No, who else had a way with words, don't you? Who else had a way with words is Florence in the Machine. They got a new album out.

That's right. That's right. You know, his methods were, his methods were a little unorthodox, but Duterte had a way with words. Say, look, I'm on, have you heard the new Lily Allen? That guy that she shacked up with total sleazeball. Total sleaze ball. And then I could casually mention that I'm on demon time now.

If they asked me to elaborate on that, I'll answer like David Lynch when he said that Eraser Heads is the most spiritual film. They said, could you tell us more about that? He said, nope. Yeah. I'll just tell somebody I'm on demon time. If they say, what do you mean by that? No further comment.

No, no comment. These are great social strategies. So already within the first 10 minutes, 15 minutes, we've given you some good context. I need to, obviously, we keep forgetting to introduce ourselves. So I'm Jay-Z. I'm the rapper, Jay-Z. I've got a new podcast called Trillillies. And this is, I don't know who you are.

I'm Shabba Ranks, Dan, dance hall legend. Real bad man. That's who I. And I'm doing, I'm doing the programming for the Super Bowl this year. So we're getting you on, Mr. Shabar Ranks. Are you excited to do the Super Bowl? Our third member, Bad Boni, who will be the entertainment this year, is currently uh you know not not on today

he's in north carolina on working on a farm with actual bunnies yeah with actual bunnies of bunny farm but he'll be back for the super bowl in february so no worries uh-huh for real though if you're tuning into this show for the first time my name is terence dude i hate fucking having to introduce myself i hate like the conventions of podcasting it's like a first day of class first day of class i had that horrible anxiety about standing up and saying my name talking about myself.

Well, I think it's a convention thing. It's the same reason why I hate movie trailers. Like, I just hate conventions and tropes and stuff. And so the, you know, every podcast has this, oh, hi, welcome to Pod Save the World. I'm, I'm Terrence, and this is Tom. You know what I mean? Welcome to Pod Save my red ass.

I'm Terrence. Simeon. Joining me as my amphibious friend, Tom. Uh-huh. We've got an exciting show for you this week. Later, we're going to hear an interview with Thomas Birmingham, who is a journalist who wrote an investigative piece for the nation about how Israel is also now taking over our real estate. It wasn't enough for them to train all the cops and to do 9-11 and... Turns out these guys are bad news. and be your own people, you know what I mean? But no, we're going to hear from Thomas Birmingham about the article he wrote about that. But before we get into that, there's just a few items we have to cover before, you know,

lest they get buried in the news. The main one, speaking of Israel, is the release of these new emails. for the houseover second release of what of the email of the new emails from oh those emails the emails yes but his emails but his emails this is uh jeffrey epstein's but his emails um between jeffrey epstein and every other powerful motherfucker on the planet i mean it you know it kind of just makes it explicit like how you know uh close epstein and Donald Trump were. But honestly, like, I think, you know,

and this is just sort of my take on it, like, what I kind of find, so there's a few things in it that were utterly disgusting. Like, absolutely fucking disgusting. One of which was this email that Epstein had sent to Tom Barak, who I guess is Trump's special envoy to Syria. And it's an email along the lines of like, let's see a picture of you and the child.

Be sure to make me smile. Like, it's just, you know, fucking pedophile variety hour with these assholes. You know, those of us in the paranoid community were dealt a solid blow yesterday, you know? It's like we've always imagined these elaborate cabals, and it's really just them, like Will Minnaker said, doing pedophile three stooges. Pretty much, yeah, yeah. Not elaborate, too. They're just kind of done. I mean, Epstein's characterization,

of Trump and all these emails is very fascinating, one of which he said like he's, you know, one of the dirtiest people have ever met. Epstein said that about Trump. So it's like the world's most notorious pedophile is calling you like a dirty dog. Like, you've got to be... You've got to be something.

Yeah, if, yeah, if the you know, the arch bad guy of our time thinks that you're too unscrupulous to maintain an audience with. Yeah. But another email that I found fascinating was Epstein saying that Trump was like very dumb and stupid and he blames everybody else

around him for all of his failures and whatnot, which is just this kind of really, I don't know, you can't help but think that like, once again, Epstein, the 20th in early 21st century's most premier petophile is saying that Trump is one of the stupidest motherfuckers you've ever met and then it's just like okay that one of the stupidest pedophiles on the planet is now the not only the president of the u.s that would be one thing but the president of the u.s that everyone from university admins to the senate majority leader to you know everyone on the planet to law firms have bowed down to and just said like all right we'll kiss the ring you win you've kissed the ring of the dumbest bastard alive you know at least do it the house you and days

when you were kissing the ring to, like, smart pedophiles, you know what I mean? That's what's at bar here. It's not necessarily their crimes, it's their level of intelligence, you know? Well, yeah, I mean, it's the, much has been said about, like, the, everyone is 12 now theory, right? Like, you've heard this, right? Like, everyone is 12 now. I think it holds, though, right? Favorable conditions for the men we're talking about.

That's true. I didn't even put that together. but I guess that does make a degree sense but yeah I mean I think that that's it like these people are like I've been thinking about that you remember when there was this trend on Republican on conservative Twitter

like a couple of years ago where you know people like Rod Dreyer or David French or whoever Greg Gutfeld whatever anytime they'd catch some flack they would post a photo of them as babies and be like when you're mad to me

this is who you're being mean to when you're being mean to me this is you're being It's like they meant that literally. Like they are all children inside their heads. And that is really the main distinction between today's pedophile leaders and, you know, high Fordist era, Neal or Keynesian pedophile leaders. Like those guys were, you know, genocidal, you know, alcoholic maniacs. But they were adults at the end of the day for better or worse.

And these, like today's leaders in their minds, they are 12. They're all 12, right? Like they're all fucking children. That's true. I think you're on to something there. There is sort of a current where everybody's trying to heal their inner child and we're hearking and we talk about childhood trauma and all these things. And like I think that's important to parse out or whatever.

But like it has become sort of the mode through which we see politics and everything else as like what was, you know, very, very strange times. I mean, it kind of makes sense that. some you know pedophiles could rise to power under those circumstances 100% well and I think that like something that I really wanted to talk about in the Epstein emails was Larry Summers involvement in all this I mean I just I fucking hate I fucking hate this guy for a million different reasons right take your pick like his rolling bailing out the banks in 2008 and his condescending like sort of like mock i don't know like his his treatment of uh pro-palestine protesters

at harvard for example or you know just everything about him um i just find to be repugnant and his name is a byword for rot right it's like a when you when you hear the name larry summers you just think you know neoliberal rot like that is the reason everything is as bad as it is but it is really wild that this guy still has obviously you turn on NPR or something and you're going to hear an interview with him opining about how Trump is bad and all this but like his

rapport with Jeffrey Epstein has not resulted in him being labeled a pariah and pushed out from the elite circles but like some of these emails are really Dersh has kind of survived it too you know Dershowitz is kind of

survived it, too. Yeah, he kind of has. I mean, he catches a lot of flack on the internet, but I feel like he's still like, makes the respectable rounds or whatever.

Totally. 100%. But like, yeah, I mean, like, I guess like Larry Summers like email, like there's this one where he's talking to Epstein.

He's recounting a date he went on. He says, we talked on the phone. Then, then, quote, I can't talk later. Didn't think I can talk tomorrow.

I don't know why he says dent instead of don't. I said, what are you up to? She said, I'm busy. I said, awfully coy you are. And then I said, did you really rearrange the weekend we were going to be together because guy number three was coming? She said, no, his schedule changed after we changed our plans. I said, okay, I got to go call me when you feel like it. Tone was not of good feeling. I didn't want to be in a gift-giving competition while being the friend without benefits. I don't know. Is he getting you like curved by a sex worker? I can't tell. I mean, I don't Epstein's, by the way, this is in March of 2019, okay, March of 2019.

Okay, so this is not even that far in the past. This is before Epstein, right before Epstein gets suicide. Six months before Epstein, yeah, or five months before Epstein gets suicided. Epstein's response was, she's smart, making you pay for past errors. Ignore the daddy I'm going to go out with the motorcycle guy. You reacted well. annoyed shows carrying no whining showed strength I don't know

imagine taking your dating beats from Jeffrey Epstein and then still having purchase in polite society as a talking head as an expert as someone who has power and influence over Harvard to like stop pro-Palestinian protest Epstein and Epstein's the guy you're going to go commiserate about a date with

God damn dude But I mean, you know, some of the other revelations from these emails are that like Trump and Epstein had a, I haven't looked too deeply into them, but it seems very much like they were still cavorting, is that the word? As recently as December 2017 and they may have even, oh yeah, I mean, I think they even were on a, they were even like running around together in 2019 as some, as part of some, uh, foreign diplomat, I don't know, it has something to do with Epstein, like trying to influence Putin and I don't know. I don't really know the finer details there, but they spent like Thanksgiving together in 2017, though, like when Trump was president, yeah. President, so he spent Thanksgiving with Jeffrey Epstein, a guy he says he barely knew, like, back in the 80s or something. Yes, yeah.

This Epstein creep, dude, it's so funny how goddamn dumb he is. is because he's like he just uses his like sort of inversion of reality as a crutch too much like it is it's it's like we all know dude like we all know and he'll still get on there and swear up and down that like he just kind of knew this guy passing like decades ago yeah I mean there's footage of him on heroin Stern saying Jeffrey he's great guy enjoys his social why I feel like some even younger than I do. Those two must have had like some sort of fucked up

disgusting competition on who could be the most prolific pedophile. Well, you know what I'm saying? Because according to these emails, it would sound like Epstein was saying that Trump likes him even younger than Epstein does. This is disgusting.

Even talking about this just fucking gives me the absolute creeps. Yeah, dude. It's, it was hilarious that reading that email but I think it was the one that went when Will said they were doing the pedophile Three Stooges that he said that Trump actually walked into a glass wall because he was so laser focused on some girls that were sitting by the pool or something. Jesus Christ, man.

It's so bad. God, it's so bad. The president is, I mean, yes, the president's a pedophile. None of the maggot people, though, will give a shit. I mean, right? it doesn't matter to them right they don't give a fuck it seems like

everything I've seen is that they just you know say that like this is just a hit job like these are selectively released emails like well here's the thing if the Democrats don't use this like you know

how they just rolled over on the deal when they had all the leverage last week if they don't use this which is their ultimate trump card it's literally I mean no pun intended it's their only thing they've been yelling about you know as like maybe a way to take it down.

If they don't use this now to try to just do whatever they can. But, you know, as, I forget who said this now, but some of our favorites might be implicated. Nancy Pelosi's daughter said that. Nancy Pelosi's daughter said. Well, I don't know. Yeah, probably not going to have any effect.

Maybe. I don't know. As of this recording, J.D. Vance is still not released a preening, you know, cloying and, statement, which I'm sure he will, like, you know, feigning outrage and indignance that people would bring any of this up, but, um, well, he's probably, he's probably making a hard calculation right now himself. And that is, do I go down with this ship and be immortalized

as, uh, in league with pedophiles and Nazis? Or do I actually show one shred of dignity and bow out of this and just get off this trip before it fully? he's going down with the pedophiles of Nazis ship for sure I think there's two birds Not a doubt my mind That's his only path To continued relevance

In victory Honestly Yeah Which is what he prioritizes More than anything else Well okay So like there's the Epstein These emails that have

That have come out And you know Again we could spend a whole episode Like getting into the Finer details of them But You know I'll leave it to other people there was something though that I found very fascinating was drop site had reported in these

emails there was something that like none of the major mainstream outlets have covered which is that the Israeli prime minister at uh huidra barak like and I think people know that he's had that he had a relationship with some sort of work yes but like I guess his right-hand person like stayed at Epstein's apartment several times and again nobody has reported on this except drop site but I think that like dropside over the past four couple weeks has been reporting about Epstein's relationship to Israel both its intelligence agencies and its diplomatic services I mean he was obviously an Israeli uh sort of formal intelligence asset yeah yeah I don't know but Again, none of this, the New York Times isn't going to cover that angle.

This is not anything that they care about. So, my hunch is Israel's got a couple of intelligence assets in that particular organization themselves. Well, yeah, dude, one of their, that was another. Editors was tipping off Epstein, right? Yes. They're snooping around again. Dude, it was, it's truly like some like Scooby-Doo, but pedophiles. Completely insane.

It's so cartoonish. It's so evil and goofy. Yeah, I forgot about their finance report. I was like, yeah, I'm just giving you a heads up. He's snooping around again. Yeah. Oh, my God, dude. Incredible, man.

Well, before we get to the interview that we did, I wanted to cover this other aspect of Trump world. We mentioned it on the Patreon episode on Monday, but this other aspect of the Trump, Trumponomics that is highly amusing, which is the 50-year mortgage. It's relevant. It pertains to our interview that we did because, you know, the real estate mogul is the president, and he's got a lot of good ideas for reviving the housing industry and whatnot. But, like, I wanted to read this short article in Politico about the person who came up with the 50-year mortgage idea. This guy's name is, he's director of federal housing finance agency, Bill Pult, or Pulte.

I don't know how to pronounce his last name. This is in Politico. It's sold POTUS a bill of goods. White House furious with Pulte over 50-year mortgage. White House officials are furious with Bill Pulte, the federal housing finance agency director, who talks the president into suggesting a 50-year mortgage plan. The White House was blindsided by the idea, according to two people familiar with the situation granted anonymity to discuss internal thinking, and is now dealing with a furious backlash from

conservative allies, business leaders, and lawmakers. On Saturday evening, Pulte arrived at President Donald Trump's Palm Beach Golf Club with a roughly three-by-five poster board in hand. A graphic of former President Franklin Roosevelt appeared below 30-year mortgage and one of Trump below 50-year mortgage. The headline was Great American Presidents. Roughly 10 minutes later, Trump posted the image to truth social, according to one of the people who was with the president at the time. Almost immediately, AIDS were filling angry phone calls

from those who thought the idea, which would endorse a 50-year payback period for a mortgage, was both bad politics and bad policy, a move that could raise housing costs in the long run. I love how Trump posted now. He's like, now that the backlash,

he's like, you idiot. Yeah, he was like, we were just saying, you have lower monthly payments. He sold POTUS a bill of goods that wasn't necessarily accurate, the person said. He said, FDR did it, you can do it. It's going to be a big thing, but he didn't tell him about all the unintended consequences.

The episode underscores the haphazard ways consequential policies are sometimes brought before the president and how Trump's governed by whim nature can backfire. Anything that goes before POTUS needs to be vetted, said the person present for Pulte's poster presentation. Yeah, because he's a fucking imbecile. One of the two people familiar said there is more fallout from this idea than almost any other policy proposal of the second term, including from the MAGA base. Trump on Monday downplayed the proposal and said it was not a big deal.

All it means is you pay less per month, Trump told Laura Ingram. Pay it over a longer period of time. It's not like a big factor. It might help a little bit. Nevertheless, conservative influencers include, including Laura Lumer, Mike Cernovich, Christopher Rufo, Sean Davis, and Marjorie Taylor Green blatted the idea on social media. The thing that became clear from this latest episode, if it wasn't clear already, is that Bill Pulte doesn't know the first fucking thing about how the mortgage markets operate, one of the two people said. I guess it's like, let's see.

On Monday, Pulte seemed to acknowledge the criticism posting that a 50-year mortgage is just one piece of a, quote, wide arsenal of solutions that the Trump administration is developing. He also mentioned Yeah, but apparently the other ones, he didn't feel strongly enough to show up with a three by five card with FDR and Trump on him. You know, that guy thought he was absolutely cooking when he showed up like,

this is going to be fucking great. Absolutely. Well, it does honestly show you how inverted everything is. We kind of, I've said it before that we're living in an inverted 1960s, but we're also kind of living in an inverted 1930s as well. in a way. He also mentioned other ideas, including portable mortgages, which can transfer to a new property and assumable mortgages, which can be transferred to a property's new buyer.

White House spokesperson Davis Engel said Trump is committed to making it easier and more affordable to achieve the American dream of home ownership. That's one way to put it. This is not the first time Pulte's policy. Let me ask you a question, though. If the bank has a lien against your mortgage, mortgage against your house until you died did you ever really own it or were you just kind of like renting it?

It's not a path to home ownership it's a path to being a fucking lifetime renter. It's actually the worst of both worlds actually. You have to fix all your own shit and you're a renter essentially. Yeah. I mean

we get into it on the interview but it is a part of a larger plan to turn everybody into a debtor of some kind. Everybody under a certain income level, income bracket. Because everything is rentier now, right? Like all the mechanisms of extracting surplus, they have to be rentier.

And so, you know, there is no future left in this country necessarily. So what do you do? You just try to suck every last bit of surplus out of it rather than engendering and motivating institutional buy-in, which is essentially what homeownership is at the end of the day. It's just like, now let's just turn everyone into a debtor of some kinds. You never get out from underneath the bank. This is not the first time Pulte's policy proposals have caused headaches.

He was also behind the idea Trump floated earlier this year to take Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac public, which also resulted in significant pushback from industry. It was also Pulte who first lodged mortgage fraud allegations against FedGov, Lisa Cook, that Trump later used to fire her. her firing has been blocked in the courts and the cases pending before the Supreme Court. Politico also recently reported that Republicans in Congress are growing increasingly frustrated with him.

Yet, Pulte remains close with the president and has direct access that AIDS have not yet been able to control. Trump isn't just Pulte's biggest ally in the admin. He is perhaps his only friend. During Trump 2.0, the last time anything got as much pushback as this was over the Epstein files. Maga is curious. So, 50-year mortgage, folks. do you think I mean not to tap back to like do you think

those this the combination of these two things like just the transparent plan to make everybody a renter eternally

and the Epstein files like do you think this is going to be the thing or do you think like this feels like they're throwing

the kitchen sink this week and yet it feels like I don't know I've not been online much it's not making much of a ripple which which one

the 50 year mortgage I mean just the the constellation of all those things happen kind of coming out together i mean i think that like if you take the capitulation on the shutdown as a indicator of where any opposition to him is at then i think you can safely say that it's not really going to matter i mean if there's no opposition to him what does it matter what does it matter if the president's a pito who is not only a pito, but one of the most prolific and, you know, malevolent out there.

Like the worst of the worst. Yeah. I don't know. It's like I said, it's kind of an inverse of the 1930s. I sent you this, did you read that article I sent you in the New York Times about that paper mill in Chilicothe, Ohio? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was pretty fascinating because basically to make a really long story short, This paper mill has been going out of business slowly over the last couple decades as, you know, we offshore manufacturing as we switch to digital instead of, you know, paper documentation.

And the, I guess it got bought by a private equity firm that was going to close it by the end of the year. And so this MAGA senator stepped in, the guy that beat Sherrod Brown, I can't remember his name now, he stepped in to try to save this factory. and basically at the end of the day wound up agreeing to a deal where they were going to preserve the factory but the union was not going to be preserved and they were going to make latex gloves instead of paper and none of the workers were going to have any protections essentially

everybody was going to get fired and this Maga Senator was like I'm a friend of the working class like I'm bringing jobs back to Ohio and at the end of the day he just basically sided with the private equity firm that bought the thing and was like well actually they made some good point. So I think that they have the workers' best interest

in my. I'll tell you who's going to be eating the most crow one day is that fucking O'Brien dude of the Teamsters. Basically just aligning them with like MAGA and Trump and like their, at least their policy goals. Yeah. That guy's

not long for this one. No. No. But again, there's no opposition. So it could be entrenched. There's, I don't really see any movement. on that. I mean, it is pretty crazy, though, and I know I always said this over and over again. The MAGA or the Trump 2.0 M.O. seems to be putting as many people out of work as possible. Like, they aren't going to release the October jobs numbers. And then I saw, like, a statistic that

when this funding bill goes through, you know, how they've banned hemp and hemp products, CBD products, it's going to put like 50,000 people out of jobs because the CBD industry has become huge. it's going to put even more people out of jobs like they love putting people out of work it's it's crazy it's like yeah if if it were up to them like it would just be like they would put us all in the old professions like she purred thatcher that'd be tight yeah like nobody would have any sort of role in the modern economy unless they could get on the ground floor at first that's crazy it's almost quaint to see like ram paul up there fighting for hemp or something like you know a 2008 uh libertarian would

Yeah, yeah. It basically came down to like Rand Paul versus Mitch McConnell. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think Mitch McConnell was like wanting, I don't know his motivations.

I think it was like, I don't think McConnell has motivations anymore. I think he just pisses a stuff a lot and falls. That's just kind of what he does now. I think you're right. Well, anyways,

we can get under that at a later date. Who knows? Could be a little while from now. I think I'm going to take the next week off. People are like, Terrence, why aren't you take him leave?

blah blah it's like motherfucker I am going to do that just you you underestimate my ability to to take leave yeah there's no there's no podcast fairy people yeah

but yeah seriously though I hope you enjoy the interview we have coming up with Thomas Birmingham stay tuned for that and go check us out on Patreon we recorded an episode on Monday that people are really enjoying.

So go check that out. All right. Well, without further ado, this is Thomas Birmingham. He is a journalist with the nation and in these Times magazine. And he wrote about this landlord company that is buying up houses all across the south in red states. And they have ties to, you guessed it, Israel and the occupation in the West Bank and genocide in Gaza. So go check that out. Thanks for listening this week.

We'll see you over on Patreon. Adios. Today is November 13th, 2025. It's been a very, very interesting week in terms of news. For example, the extent of Epstein's collaboration with everyone from Larry Summers to Donald Trump has become even more. Collaboration doing a lot of work there. Well, and also just like his. work with Israel, I don't know, that's going to be something we're going to get into later.

Not specifically Epstein and Israel, but, you know, Israel's, you know, hold over various aspects of American life and culture. So it seems like, you know, real estate is a big theme this week, also with Trump dropping his 50-year mortgage plan, which is a pretty dope idea. And, but, but here, here to talk about like a specific kind of, you know, aspect of American real estate and political economy. We have Thomas Birmingham, who is a research fellow at In These Times Magazine and an investigative reporter based in New Haven, Connecticut. His work has appeared in the nation in these times, the Appeal, the Louisville Courier Journal. Bam. All right.

Here in Kentucky. And the New Haven Independent. Thomas, how you doing? I'm doing great. Thanks so much for having me on. We really appreciate it. You just recently wrote an article for the nation. Article is not doing it justice. It was a very well-researched, well-reported investigative piece called the Eviction Kings. One of Israel's biggest companies is taking over huge swaths of U.S. real estate and tenants are paying the price. I wanted to have you on because this is, this has been like a topic we've covered a lot on this show. We've covered various tenant unions. We've covered various real estate schemes and enterprises in the U.S., but all the way back, I don't know, maybe listeners will remember

this, all the way back in maybe October, November, 2023, we had some members from the Louisville Tenants Union on our show. And they, you know, as we started talking to them and like listening to a lot of the problems they're dealing with, you know, this was just after October 7th in the beginnings of the genocide in Gaza. And we started like, you know, teasing out some of these threads of like displacement and colonization and how there are some commonalities between the methods and structures that like displace people, both in the West Bank and in Gaza now and in parts of the United States. And I thought this article did a great job of, you know, just providing a literal explicit framework for that. So,

just to kind of get this started here, Thomas, your investigation starts with the story of Duran Kelly. He's evicted from his apartment at the Conrad at Concord Mills apartment complex in Charlotte, North Carolina, after it was bought by this company called American Landmark. We can talk about the history of American Landmark in just a second, as well as who owns it and runs it, but maybe like just for now, can you give us like a brief overview of who they are, where they operate and what their business model is? Yeah, for sure. So they have become, in the last six years or so, the currently the 34th largest landlord

in the country, they have roughly 34,000 units spread out among over a hundred of these kind of mega complexes, all of which have 200 units or more. and they're exclusively spread out in southern states, primarily North Carolina, Florida, Texas. And my piece gets into a little bit that this is very explicit, that they've sought out these properties in these exclusively red states primarily because of the lack of robust tenant protections in these areas. but they also, you know, are an entirely, you know, speculative private equity operation. Most of their properties, they sell within five, six years after raising the rent significantly. And so they very much fall in line with a lot of these large institutional investors that have been increasingly buying up a lot of property throughout the country in recent years. When it seems like I think you mentioned in the piece, like the eviction,

rate and just at like Concord, what is it called, Concord Mills? Yes. The, their eviction rates were kind of insane. Yeah, so that's the other very egregious part of their model. They, the eviction lab at Princeton has an average eviction rate that they produce every year. And that hovers around 7, 8%. And in any of the cities that they track, the highest that they've found is 24%.

But at many American landmark properties, I've found the rate reaches as high as 70, even 80%. So 9, 10 times the national average. And this wasn't limited to one area. I found buildings like this in Marietta, Georgia, in Charlotte, North Carolina, Jacksonville, Florida, Houston, where rates just became greatly, greatly inflated.

And the other, I think, very noteworthy thing about this is, you know, at that Conrad at Concord Mills complex in particular, the previous owner had an eviction filing rate of around 16%. And so it quadrupled after American Landmark bought this property. And so, yeah, it's very widespread throughout their portfolio. what's what's the financial incentive to sort of set up shop in places where the eviction rates are so high and we're like as you said like you know there's not a ton of tenant protections and the law tends to tilt toward landlords and stuff like that is it kind of parallel maybe this dovetails

nicely with you know uh trump also rolling out a 15 year car notes this week long with 50 year mortgages but does it kind of mirror the sub mark the subprime like car market in the sense of like there's more money to be made, preying on people who might not have, like, good credit or different things like that kind of going on. Is it... Yeah, I think what I found is that it more traces back to... That their model explicitly anticipates

eventually removing as many as 45% of the original tenants that live in the property when they purchase it. So that's baked in. That's, yes, it's... I had a conversation with Joseph Lubeck, the CEO of American landmark, He told me that explicitly, that they only expect to preserve 55% of the tenants in a property when they purchase it. And that's explicitly because they seek out, quote unquote, distressed properties where rents are below market rate and plan to raise rents from anywhere to $100 to $400 a month when they purchase it.

And so tenants like Diren Kelly, who you mentioned earlier, you know, held out for kind of as long as they could after the rent increase, you know, hit. His rent was raised $400. But eventually, you know, it's something that they, most tenants can't keep up with. And so the, I think that is the primary source of where these greatly exacerbated eviction rates are coming from. Yeah. You have a quote in here from the board. share of one of the companies that owns American Landmark. And again, we're going to get into that in second, the other companies that own American Landmark. But the quote I found very

fascinating. The quote was, Republican Red States are very landlordist. In free market capitalism, there are a few protections for the tenant. If you want to evict a tenant in New York, you will have a lot more of a challenge than evicting a tenant in Florida. And I think that, yeah, it goes to answer your question, Tom. Like they explicitly sort of target these states where there aren't any real protections for tenants. And I just like also that statement is very, in my opinion, illustrative. Republican red states are very landlordist. It kind of like gives you insight into the, you know, the burgeoning political economy of the nation that we are sort of inheriting in the 21st century where everybody's kind of, I don't know,

everybody's like everybody's mobility is increasingly constrained um or they're either they're either constrained through like through carceral practices and debt or they're displaced and forced to basically eke out a living um somewhere else i think that like you know something else that i wanted to talk about with you thomas was like you had mentioned that like daren kelly's rent went up As soon as American Landlord or American Landmark, American Landlord would also work. But as soon as American Landmark took over his apartment complex, his rent went up. But like there were several other changes too. Like could you talk about some of the other changes he saw?

Like the exorbitant fees and these like, you know, knock on, like add on things they didn't even want in their lease. Totally. Yeah. So throughout American Landmark portfolio, at all of their properties, they have a, what's deemed a concierge package of these that typically runs at $150, $200 total. It includes a mandatory Wi-Fi and cable service, valet trash pickup, pest control, a whole host of smaller, you know, $5, $10 charges. is. And that is separate from the just increase in the base rent in it of itself. And so that

is an even additional large shift in what many of these tenants experienced. And based on my conversation with Kelly and a number of the other tenants I spoke with particularly in Charlotte, they also attested to the fact that American Landmark renovates the property, quote unquote, after they purchase it and that's part of why they justify raising the rent by so much. But in cases like Kelly's, in his observation, these renovations were pretty much purely cosmetic in terms of light fixtures, cabinet doors, putting in keyless door locks like hotels, but like the major appliances like his fridge and his stove were the same. And so I think, yeah, there's a number of additional sort of grievances that these tenants have aside from just the pure base rent increase.

Yeah, I mean, sort of on the same note, we were just talking about a second ago. I've been reading this book called Carceral Capitalism by Jackie Wong. And she talks a lot a bit about this increase in, you know, as the social welfare state was peeled back, obviously there was a shift to debt. and encouraging people to take on massive amounts of debt. And, you know, like, for example, like, you're basically shamed for not having a credit card, right? Like, you're pressured into getting a credit card

and getting consumer debt. But, like, now you're starting to see it, like, extend into all facets of life through fees and these rentier practices. Like, you had a quote in here from Stephen Tudu, a former Conrad tenant. It says, they're using the technology package, the concierge package you were just talking about a second ago.

as a tool of debt collection to coerce you to pay everything. And so a lot of these things, like, people don't even really know they're signing up for this. And they'll disconnect your cable and Wi-Fi. Like, they make you pay for it, but then they'll disconnect it, you know, if you're laid on a payment or something like that. Yeah, I mean, the, this was something that I heard at a number of different buildings is tenants, once they were late on rent, discovering that they had no longer had any access. to internet services, you know, several people talk to me about how that obviously is something

that's going to make it harder for them to produce income if they're trying to do that online, work remotely. But I also found that in a number of cases, in the same month that the Wi-Fi and cable package was disconnected, American Landmark would also hike on a $75 dollar reconnection fee, so tenants were being charged in the same month for an internet service that was not on and they were being charged to turn it back on. And when that tenant complained about this, American Manmark wrote back to him saying essentially our bad, we'll adjust that fee down to $25, sort of inexplicably. So, you know, there's a lot of evidence that these fees are somewhat arbitrary. Yeah.

Well, and I think you had pointed out there was like a 2011 presentation that some of the people that run this business, like, put together that outlined like their strategy and like who they were targeting. It says it outlines its method of turning, quote, working class in young families described as the, quote, broadest, most stable of real estate, quote, food groups. Yep. According to the presentation, the company seeks out foreclosed or distressed complexes that can be acquired cheaply before. renovating them. These changes are then used to justify the rent increases American landmarks now evicted tenants experience. As we talk about like their methods and specifically how they view people, how they view tenants, like putting them in these food groups obviously is egregious, but like you've also got some really insane quotes in here from

American landmark CEO, Joseph Lubick. I want to talk a little bit about Joseph Lubick. What is his business philosophy and what was what were some of his responses when you confronted him about these things like these fees and the rent increases and the eviction rates and whatnot? Yeah, I mean, he he is the reason that we found out in this piece that they expect to evict 45 or to they expect that 45% of the existing tenants in a property will move out. That came directly from him sort of openly admitting that. And, yeah, I mean, he also very directly said that we expect people to be displaced because of our model. And what I found very interesting in my conversation with him was that as he was saying that, he also was very adamant that, quote, we are not in the eviction business.

Right. he frames it as we're just replenishing rental stock in instead he also very very heavily disputed the data that we had found on our various eviction filing records at these properties but he also then later in our conversation acknowledged that we may file 50 evictions in a 200 unit complex which would be a filing rate of you know triple the national average. I honestly, I think I've covered housing for a while now

and was very, in a weird way, refreshed in my conversation with him about how explicit he was about what the model that they're utilizing in these properties is. Yeah. Yeah, just basically explicitly saying that, I mean, to me, like referring to renters

is replenishing rental stuff. It kind of has echoes of, I don't remember who said this early on in the pandemic when they were talking about we have to get our human capital stock back to work. Like, they view you as livestock, basically, right? It's like. I was thinking exactly that when you mentioned the food groups classification. It's like, yeah. Yeah, and one of the tenants I spoke with that directly said that that's how she felt.

She said that were like cattle to them. And I also wanted to point out from that 2011 presentation you mentioned earlier, one of the most interesting quotes to me from that was that at each new property, the company says, quote, they're going to clean up rent role by evicting delinquent and non-paying tenants and attracting higher quality tenants. And the reason that stood out to me in particular is the vast majority of the tenants that I spoke with for this piece were non-white. And I think that, especially in these large cities and in southern states like Charlotte, Jacksonville, many of the tenants in these complexes are black and brown and facing and end up being part of this 45% of these buildings that are eventually displaced from where they're living. So, yeah. Well, you know, we talk about displacement. This would be a good segue way to get into the part of the piece that I think would come as a pretty big surprise to a lot of people. I mean, I think a lot of the things we've covered so far would be shocking and should be shocking to the moral conscience, obviously.

But I don't know if they're fully outside the realm of what we sort of expect in American housing as genocidal and homicidal as it is. But I think the part of this that is really kind of shocking is who owns American Landmark and how that ownership affects American Landmark's business practices. So, Thomas, tell us a little bit about who owns American Landmark and what are some of their business practices. Of course, yeah. So in 2008, American, what was then called Landmark Residential was purchased by a company called Elko, which is today one of the largest companies in Israel. It's actually the third

largest employer in the entire country. And what I found is that many of Elko's subsidiaries are directly linked and intertwined with illegal settlements in the West Bank and the genocide in Gaza. For example, they're the United Nations Human Rights Office. publishes a database and updates a database of roughly 150 companies that are, that they found to be doing business in these settlements that have been deemed illegal under international law. And Elko's subsidiary, which is called Electra, it's kind of a, they deem it like Electra superbrand. It's a conglomerate of many, many different companies shows up in this database. twice under different versions of electrosubsidiaries. And one of them runs bus lines that go to these settlements. Another is in the process of constructing major tunnels that will make travel

from one illegal settlement to Jerusalem very easy and will eventually encourage people to make it easier to move to the settlements. And then we also found a quote from the CEO of Electra Power, which is the company's kind of energy arm that says that in 2024, quote, the IDF is a major client. We stand shoulder to shoulder with them and facing challenges and fulfilling missions. We are likely the only supplier that can say we've expanded our areas of deployment. This is a great source of pride for us. And so this, this this company is heavily entangled in all of these areas and, yeah, has a direct, direct ownership stake of American landmark and all of those real estate practices that

we've been talking about this whole time. Yeah. It's weird how much connective tissues between sort of every issue that we come up against with like rent and like policing and all that stuff. I think it's specifically about the murder of Brianna Taylor in Louisville, which kind of sprang out of, you know, cops basically shaking down these tenants in these neighborhoods to create static where there was none to have pretense to go in and terrorize people, you know,

in these recently gentrified places and stuff like that. So, you know, if you just look at the way the IDF is trained American police and stuff like that, it's just like they've got their fingerprints on this whole little ecosystem, you know. Yeah, I mean, you've got a situation where they're training, the cops to do the evictions and then they own the real estate companies that then buy the

apartment complexes that people are evicted from and use them to move in high quality tenants so they can hike up the rent and... I wonder what they mean by high quality tenants, yeah. I mean, you know, I think you pointed it out, Thomas. Like, obviously they mean white

or they mean non, anyone that's not a person of color and I think that like maybe that's their whole thing with like the 50 year mortgage it's like people are being pushed out of even homeownership in this country

so it's like you know the middle class obviously is more and more of a renter class I don't know I mean you know you had mentioned I just wanted to point out a few things about Elko and about Electra in the piece you know earlier Thomas you had mentioned the woman Mary Naples

who said we're like cattle to them. That quote is very illuminating because that quote was in the context of you pointing out to her the like that American landmark was owned by a company linked to illegal settlements. And she said, I'm not surprised that they're doing people over here the same way they're doing people over there because we're one and the same to them, said Mary Napier, who sent American landmark some $15,000 over the course of her tendency. We're like, paddle to them like dogs, and I still don't have a place of my own. Me and my kids are still displaced. They don't care about us, and they don't care about those same people in Palestine. You know, you had talked a little bit about some of the things that Electra does and Elko does,

but, like, you had also mentioned in your piece that the company Elektra has actually been boycotted in several places around the world because of their business practices. So, like, in any other country where like BDS wouldn't be considered like illegal and you know what I mean like you can't do BDS in this country because it's uh you know we don't have free speech anymore and all this um in any other country like their business practices would be sort of pointed out and it'd be a scandal I guess is what you were pointing out in the article um what are some yeah what's that Thomas I was just saying yeah completely yeah what are some of the things that they've caught some flack for or where have they caught some plaque around the world

Yeah, so the primary source of this backlash, which I thought was particularly interesting, came from a company that is even further removed from connection to Electra than American Landmark is. So the French retail giant CARIFOR had a partnership with an Elektra-owned chain of grocery stores, which had several branches in illegal settlements. And this ended up sparking, among other things, issues with CARFOR, widespread protests in France early this year, and then also directly contributed to the closure of multiple CAREFOR branches in multiple Gulf states, Kuwait, Jordan, and a few others. So, yeah, I mean, you're spot on in that plenty of other places when these connections are discovered to an even lesser degree than the connection between American Landmark and Electra, which again is direct ownership, it sparks widespread backlash. Yeah.

I looked up Elko before we hopped on here. And on their Wikipedia page, they've got a cool little drop-down menu of all the social good charity causes they are involved in. doesn't mention yeah it doesn't doesn't mention as much their involvement in displacing people in the settlements and whatnot but there was another thing I found

about Electra this is in the Jerusalem Post Electra celebrates 80 years launching summer 2025 they return to the iconic orange and it's about like a music festival I guess they had earlier this year They, you know, I guess they are a leading brand in Israeli air conditioning as well.

Like you said, Thomas, they do all kinds of things, like logistics, infrastructure, but they are also like a big air conditioning brand. CEO of Electric Consumer Products Group, Zvika Schwimmer, opened with greetings to all attendees and presented the vision for summer 2025. We have brought orange back to life, not just metaphorically, but by fully embracing the orange color that has been synonymous with the electric brand for 80 years. I don't really know what that means we brought orange. orange of act alive. But like what is Electra? Like when did it get started? Like I guess what I'm

trying to get out here is like Electra is an old company in Israel. And I guess Elko is as well. Like it goes all the way back to the creation of Israel, right? It does. Yeah, it was one year after the state of Israel was founded. So they've, they've been doing business in this country since its founding. And at one point in time, they were the exclusive provider of power transformers for the IDF. This was, this was decades ago, but just to show that they've been kind of an intrinsic part of the business infrastructure of Israel for decades, yeah. Well, and something that was very striking to me was you essentially confronted Lubick about this, right? And he was essentially tried to like downplay it, right? Like, we don't get

into politics. Like, we don't, like, our business model is. not political. We don't get into the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Right. Yeah, no. They, he was very emphatic about that. And I

found very interesting from our conversation that sort of illuminates the depth of their private equity model was to kind of back that up. He told me that some of their biggest investors are Muslim countries from the Gulf, you know, from

Dubai from Qatar, et cetera. And so he said, so quote, everybody is benefiting. It has nothing to do with Jews or Israel or any of those things. But yeah, no, he was very emphatic that the company has no political views of any kind. But I think it's also important to note that a very, very significant portion of the money generated from these rental complexes is being funneled back to this network of Alco Electra corporations. So, yeah. Right, yeah. People's basically right.

People's rents are being funneled back into a system that encourages displacement. It's like this reverbing or rebounding thing where like displacement in the West Bank funds displacement here and the displacement here funds displacement there. You know what I mean? It's like a very, you kind of get in miniature a look. at how sort of global political economy is shaping up in this late empire, late imperial stage of America. Because as Lubik points out, they do also have Arab sponsors like UAE, you know, Dubai and Saudis

and all this. And I mean, part of what October 7 was about was a sort of rebellion or pushback against this, you know, plan for a new Middle East that Netanyahu and the Gulf. states were essentially cooking up prior to October 2023, which essentially planned to shut the Palestinians out completely. And so you do kind of have a look at like how that framework or that process is being carried out. And it's just really surreal that, you know, that it touches obviously like people in America, but like in this very like real visceral way as well. like, you know, that their own hard-earned money goes to essentially fund that process.

And yeah, and to that boomerang that you're talking about, I think one of the things that I continue to think about throughout the process of reporting this piece is that included in the money that is sent from these American tenants to American landmark. And then Electra is these fees that show up as a result of the evictions that are filed against the tenants themselves, 200, 300 extra dollars as part of having an eviction filed against you. And so that is a very kind of literal example of money from the process of displacement being funneled back into another very large displacement operation. Well, I think we've covered a lot of the sort of basics here, most of the basics

here. And Thomas, I just want to thank you for your time and for your work you put into this. I guess maybe for people listening to this, like what would be some ways to either support your work, both support your work and also like what would be some avenues or ways to, how do I say this, like chip away at the ability of these companies to exploit people like this? Like, you know, you had mentioned they target specific states because of their lack of protections for tenants. Surely that would indicate that like we need stronger protections for tenants. Right. Right. Right. Well, yeah, first all, I'll just say I would strongly encourage everyone to subscribe to the nation in these times where making these investigations very possible

and supported me through this whole process of reporting on this for over a year. But yeah, I would say that I point this out in the piece, but we're not exactly in a political landscape in terms of the president being a notorious landlord, where we're, you know, staring down the corner of legislative reforms on a major scale for tenants. And so I would say that, you know, in my experience at the Louisville Courier Journal, I had covered frequently the Louisville Tenant Union and saw firsthand the impact that they were able to have and continue to have in a lot of different areas. Tenet unions on that scale are not very common throughout the South and many of the states where American Landmark owns property. And so I think that there's certainly an appetite

among the tenants that I spoke with for infrastructure like that that can provide some level of community and organizing and safeguard as these large companies continue to buy up property. Yeah, I would say to just try and find avenues for increased tenant organizing because, yeah, from the federal legislative perspective, it is looking pretty bleak.

Yeah. Well, Thomas, thank you so much for your time. Like I said, thank you so much for the work that you put into this. I think it's, like I said, it's very important, very illuminating for people to sort of sort of be able to start mapping out the burgeoning political economy of America in the 21st century. And wouldn't you know it, it is, of course, linked in many ways to the genocide in Gaza and the displacement of Palestinians, as we've, you know, belabored over and over for two years now. Like, that is the issue that is the central sort of paradigm or contradiction of American politics. And that seems to be borne out more and more with every passing month.

Thank you so much, Thomas, for your work on this. And go, as Thomas said, go subscribe to the nation. and in these times. And Thomas, you're also on Twitter, right? Yes, yes. Just at Thomas BIRM, B-I-R-M. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Thomas,

and we'd love to have you back on again. And yeah, thank you, everybody, for listening, and we'll talk to you later. Thank you. You know, I'm trying to